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> au fait

As someone very curious about language usage, why wouldn’t you just write the word “familiar” there.

I’m genuine curious as to your motivations. Is it brevity? Am I missing additional context this provides?

It’s just a phrase that’s in standard usage in some dialects (like mine) but I guess not in others. I don’t think it’s deliberately obscurantist, just people writing as they talk. I’m happy with people letting having some flavour or colour to their speech rather than aiming for germanic recidivism as an ideal of purity. (Though yeah clear simple plain writing can be good to aim for, what that means depends on who yer talkin to).

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